Two-Cow Economics

Two-Cow Economics

Where we were

Capitalism:

You have two cows. You milk the cows, sell the milk, and buy a bull. Your business grows with your herd, and others profit from your increased need for goods and services that you buy to support your business.

Socialism:

You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk. Production falls, because when it's quitting time, everyone wants to go home. No one wants to work overtime unless they're paid for it. And don't mess with my vacation time!

Soviet Communism:

(The Soviets claimed that their system was socialism progressing to communism.) You have two cows. The government takes both. Your family having partially survived somehow the destruction of the Kulaks as a class enemy, they let you stand in line to be issued your allotment of skim milk, which has spoiled by the time you get it. (The cream has already been skimmed off by the party apparatchiks for themselves.) The chicken farmers who survived are assigned to take care of all the cows, but they steal back as much milk as they can to sell on the black market. You are conscripted to take care of their confiscated chickens. In order to survive in the failing economy, you end up being forced to steal back as much as you can to sell on the black market.

Summary:

The black-market underground barter economy is the only thing that sustained the Soviet system from collapsing completely before it expired. The so-called Russian Mafia is global-reaching legacy of that underground economy. It survived & grew amidst the general scofflaw cultural attitude that developed as a survival strategy during the period of Soviet socialism. Even the best intentioned had to use underground deals to accomplish anything in the stifling bureaucracy of the command economy.

As regards socialism, the difference between the NAZIs and the Soviet Communists is that the the former were National Socialists while the Soviets were International Socialists. Life under the NAZIs is pretty well documented & understood since the defeat of Germany in 1945. But, nurtured by decades of Soviet investment via proxy to support organizing agitation in university level institutions, Leftover Leftists
in American society and around the World have chosen to minimize the effects of socialism in areas under Soviet influence and worked to denigrate free-market capitalism as found in the USA.

The form of idealized propaganda called "Socialist Realism" expressed the official Soviet view of their society. All dissenting views were suppressed. But try reading "Animal Farm" ((1)) & "Gulag Archipelago" ((2)) for a better understanding of socialist-communist realities. A tiny and entertaining peak into the reality of socialism/communism, can be seen in the movie "Moscow on the Hudson" (main character played by Robin Williams).

Where we are

Any, who try to make any claim whatsoever about the advantages of socialism, are speaking from pure ignorance until they have read and truly comprehend what Animal Farm and Gulag Archipelago have to convey. Only those with closed minds fail to appreciate the truth that stares them directly in the face from the experience of millions who suffered under socialism/communism in the last century.

In market economy America, there has been a big outcry over the "illegal aliens" that make great effort to cross over the border into the U.S. trying to make a better life for themselves. The socialist countries of the Soviet Union had a similar problem -- but in their case, they built the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain to keep their citizens from escaping.

In light of what history has to teach, it is interesting to speculate how slouching back into socialism in America just might be a solution to the problem of curbing the tide of illegal aliens trying to sneak in.

Where are we going?

The World has pretty well dealt with the global threat from the Nazis of the 1930s and 40s. And the major threat of the 1950s – 1980s from atheistic Socialism-Communism seems largely in remission after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, “Igor'” Chavez seems to be trying in Venezuela to use the same, old Communist takeover strategy tried so many times before. Hopefully, the Venezuelan population will awaken soon enough to stop Chavez before he gains too much dictatorial power. But, with fading global support for Communism, his socialist-communist strategy is likely to falter earlier than later.

Big Daddy Soviet Union is no longer there as major trade partner to support Cuba – their “aircraft carrier” off the coast of America. Like China, Cuba has been relying more and more on free-trade small business to keep their economies from collapsing. North Korea, the sole remaining Communist regime on the planet, cannot even keep its own population from starving of famine. What's left for Chavez is to play buddies with Russia and others, who hate America and/or wish to have a base in the Americas to extend their global reach & influence.

Now the Islamists have been carrying forward Fascism from the NAZIs (along with their hatred of the Jews) and have replaced the atheistic foundations of Soviet Marxism-Leninism with Islamist absolutism. Unfortunately all too many seem to be looking backwards at what is described above rather than paying much attention to the growing global threat that has been festering, growing like a Cancer over the last twenty years. (One may note that Soviet Communism was similarly festering while the World focused attention on the Nazi threat. It wasn't until after the defeat of the Nazis and the mestatization period of the late 1940's that the World appeared to awaken to the threat when Central & Eastern Europe fell into the Soviet grip, but Greece, Finland, & Austria avoided it by the skin of their teeth.)

Which all brings us to:

Islamist Fascism:

You have two cows. At first, the government makes them wear burkas since cows are female, but later shoots them because "they are Hindu religious symbols."
You are forced to grow poppies so the Mullahs can sell opium to the infidels to weaken non-Islamist society and to have money for supporting terrorism around the World.

Footnotes:

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((1)) See about the book at URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm

((2)) Find copies of various editions available at Amazon.com

(some used individual copies for a dollar or less each)